Guest Blogging: Following Up On My Blog Guest

At the beginning of February, I shared with you “My Blog Guest,” a blogging venture started by Ann Smarty who is well known in SEO circles. At that time I had yet to welcome my first guest blogger, but since then I’ve published four articles across three sites and am about to approve or publish two more.

I won’t go into all the details about this terrific site; please read my earlier article and visit My Blog Guest to learn more. But what I will share with you today are some observations on how to work with guest bloggers, offering tips to help make this practice work well for your blogs.

Make A Plan – If you own one or more blogs, you may benefit from having a guest writer contribute unique material. Although I don’t need outside contributors I have found that some of my guest bloggers are regular readers anyway, so why not reward their loyalty by encouraging a guest post? Still, you may need to plan what type of articles you want to appear on your site—I enjoy contributions in areas where my expertise isn’t particularly strong.

Post Your Request – Though there are other guest blogging sites out there, I only belong to Ann’s site. So, I can’t speak about how the others work. With My Blog Guest you register with that site, create a profile and then put your request on the forum. You can also answer requests for guest bloggers to contribute your work elsewhere.

Do Your Homework – Once you post your request (be as detailed as possible) expect to receive several replies, some of which will be posted right online while others will be sent to you via private message. A few people may discover your email address and send a proposal directly to you. I always ask for samples of previously published work, a topic proposal and a general outline before proceeding. I then put out the parameters for the article—typically 400 to 750 words—and then wait until I receive a draft before taking the next step.

Carefully Review Contributions – I don’t want duplicate content so I check with Copyscape to make sure what is sent to me is unique. I also ask people not to use the article elsewhere after the fact as I want to keep what is published on my blogs unique. If someone wants to do a heavy rewrite and use it elsewhere that’s fine with me. I also will edit articles if something isn’t clear, but I usually don’t uphold AP Stylebook standards because we’re talking about blogs, not newspaper sites. Still, if something needs to be clarified or made more concise, I may rework it myself slightly.

Be Link Generous – I limit links to just two per article and I usually require those links to appear in the “author’s resource box” at the end of the article. But, if links are relevant to the article, then they are included. Moreover, I utilize StumbleUpon and Twitter to make sure that the articles get noticed and I’ll push it through other SEO channels if warranted.

Ultimately, I believe that guest articles are mutually beneficial to contributor and to blog owners alike, so I do what it takes to help everyone out.

Am I sold on guest blogging? You bet! Though I haven’t contributed to other blogs since last year, I expect when things slow down for me after tax season that I’ll make my own contributions here and there.

Guest blogging rocks and Ann Smarty’s site helps bring people together; a winning combination you may want to explore further.